Audio Issues

[VoiceTeacher]

I have been using Zoom to teach voice lessons online since Covid, and while there were sometimes some lag or freezing, I could always hear my students sing.  Starting 2-3 months ago, the audio in Zoom became increasingly more problematic, and now doesn't work any more at all for singing.  At present, I am only using Zoom for one student.  We can hear each other speak, he can hear my keyboad, and he can hear when I sing to demonstrate, but I cannot hear him half the time.  The sound cuts in and out.  Why is this?  Something obviously changed at Zoom.  There has been no change to either of our computers.  What changes did Zoom make to audio that created this problem?

[LeoraConnelly]

Over the past year, Zoom has been gradually adjusting its noise suppression and audio optimization settings, which are designed primarily for speech rather than singing or music. These changes can cause musical tones, sustained notes, or higher pitches to get filtered out as “background noise,” which explains why your student’s singing cuts in and out, even though speaking and keyboard sounds still come through.

[stueker · Accepted solution]

@VoiceTeacher 
You would need to check two settings:
1. The audio settings of Zoom, especially the Audio profile: For your case I would recommend to try out the "Original sound for musicians" or the "Live performance audio" setting. When you activate one of those two profiles in the settings you then also need to activate them in side the meeting (you should the setting in the upper right corner).

2. The audio settings of your operating system. Modern versions of Windows or Mac OS also offer their own noise suppression and audio filtering settings, which would need to be disabled.